Metroidvania. Say it out loud. Five clunky syllables that sound like a European country nobody can find on a map. Yet this inelegant portmanteau has become one of gaming’s most recognizable genre labels, describing everything from Hollow Knight to Dead Cells to over 2,200 titles currently tagged on Steam. But where did this weird word actually come from, and why are we still using it 20-plus years later?
The answer involves forum discussions from 2001, two writers from the now-defunct 1UP.com website, and a Game Boy Advance launch title that nobody expected to define an entire movement. The story of how Metroidvania entered the gaming lexicon is messier and more accidental than you’d think, and the guy most often credited with coining it insists he didn’t.
The Games That Started Everything
Before we talk about the word itself, we need to understand what it describes. The Metroidvania formula combines exploration-based progression with interconnected world design where new abilities unlock previously inaccessible areas. You can’t reach that ledge until you get the double jump. That door stays locked until you find the right key. The map gradually opens as your character gains power, rewarding backtracking and thorough exploration.
Nintendo’s Metroid launched in 1986, dropping players into the alien planet Zebes with minimal guidance. Instead of linear levels, you navigated a sprawling underground maze where progress depended on finding power-ups like missiles, bombs, and the iconic Morph Ball. The game trusted players to explore, get lost, and eventually figure out where to go next. It was revolutionary for its time.
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest hit the NES just a year later in 1987, less than twelve months after the original Metroid. Simon Belmont’s quest featured RPG elements, an open world to explore, and gear progression that unlocked new areas. While not as refined as later entries, it planted seeds for what the series would eventually become. The original Metroid and Castlevania II effectively shared the same core mechanics of utility-gated exploration and backtracking through interconnected maps.
But the game that truly defined the formula and sparked the need for a genre label came a decade later: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Symphony of the Night Changes Everything
When Castlevania: Symphony of the Night released for PlayStation in 1997, it represented a dramatic departure from the series’ established formula. Traditional Castlevania games featured linear stage-based progression where you whipped your way through levels until facing Dracula. Symphony threw that structure out entirely, instead presenting Dracula’s castle as one massive interconnected environment to explore freely.
You played as Alucard, Dracula’s son, gaining experience points, leveling up, and collecting equipment that improved your stats. New abilities like transforming into a bat or mist allowed access to previously unreachable areas. The game even featured an inverted castle that essentially doubled the content. If this all sounds suspiciously like Super Metroid from 1994, that’s because Symphony of the Night borrowed heavily from Nintendo’s formula while adding RPG depth and Castlevania’s gothic aesthetic.
Reviews at the time immediately noted the similarity. Symphony of the Night was compared to Super Metroid by critics who recognized the shared DNA. The game became a critical darling, winning Game of the Year awards from multiple publications and earning a Greatest Hits label within a year. It wasn’t some obscure sleeper hit discovered years later. People knew Symphony was special from day one, and they noticed it played more like Metroid than previous Castlevania entries.
Yet despite the obvious connection, nobody had a catchy name for this style of game. That would come four years later with a handheld launch title that few people remember today.
Circle of the Moon and the Birth of a Term
The Game Boy Advance launched in 2001 with Castlevania: Circle of the Moon as one of its premiere titles. Developed by Konami’s KCEK team rather than Koji Igarashi (who famously disliked it), Circle of the Moon returned to Symphony of the Night’s exploratory structure after linear entries like Castlevania Chronicles. It featured interconnected areas, ability-gated progression, RPG leveling, and that distinctive Metroid-style map revealing itself as you explored.
This is where things get interesting. The earliest documented use of the term Metroidvania appears in a Google Groups forum post from 2001 specifically discussing Circle of the Moon. The post, found in the rec.games.video.nintendo newsgroup, used “Metroidvania” to describe how this new Castlevania borrowed so heavily from Metroid’s structure.
Around this same time period, writers at 1UP.com started using the term internally and in published work. Scott Sharkey and Jeremy Parish, both 1UP staffers who would later co-host the Retronauts podcast, became associated with popularizing Metroidvania in gaming discourse. Sharkey in particular used the term to describe the GBA Castlevania games that followed Symphony’s template rather than the classic linear formula.
Jeremy Parish is most often credited as the person who coined Metroidvania, but he’s repeatedly clarified that he didn’t invent it. Parish has stated multiple times that Sharkey was already using the term when he started working at 1UP around 2003. In a 2007 Retronauts video discussion with Sharkey and Chris Kohler from Wired, the three discussed older games with Metroidvania elements without ever claiming credit for creating the word itself.
So who actually invented it? Probably some random forum poster in 2001 whose name is lost to history. What Parish and Sharkey did was popularize the term through their influential writing and podcasting, turning an obscure portmanteau into industry-standard vocabulary.
Why Metroidvania Stuck Despite Being Terrible
Let’s be honest: Metroidvania is an awful word. It’s aesthetically unpleasant, five syllables that trip over themselves. It means absolutely nothing to anyone unfamiliar with either Metroid or Castlevania. Both root words are themselves portmanteaus (Metroid combines metro and android, Castlevania merges castle and Transylvania), making Metroidvania a portmanteau of portmanteaus. It’s linguistic chaos.
Kotaku published a piece in 2019 titled “Stop Calling Games Metroidvania,” arguing the term is inefficient, meaningless to outsiders, and at odds with how we typically name game genres. Most genres describe what you do: first-person shooter, turn-based strategy, platformer. These are categories of interaction that communicate gameplay at a glance. Metroidvania tells you nothing except that it’s somehow related to two specific game franchises from decades ago.
Alternative terms existed. “Castleroid” appeared in GameFAQs forums around the late 1990s but sounded even worse. “Platform adventure” got used in some communities but was too generic. “Search action” is what Japanese developers sometimes called it, which actually describes the gameplay better but never caught on in the West. “Exploration platformer” works functionally but lacks the punchy memorability that defines good genre labels.
Despite all its flaws, Metroidvania survived and thrived for several reasons. First, it emerged at exactly the right moment. When Circle of the Moon launched in 2001, the style of game it represented had largely vanished from the mainstream. Nintendo and Konami released mostly handheld Metroid and Castlevania sequels while other developers ignored the formula entirely. Having a specific term to describe this nearly-extinct genre helped the few remaining fans identify and rally around new entries.
Second, Symphony of the Night’s cultural impact cannot be overstated. It was a watershed moment that redefined what Castlevania could be. Naming the genre partially after that transformative title created an instant connection to quality and innovation. When indie developers in the late 2000s started reviving the formula with games like Cave Story, Shadow Complex, and Axiom Verge, calling them Metroidvanias immediately communicated what players should expect.
Third, the awkwardness became part of the charm. Metroidvania sounds like insider jargon, a secret handshake for people deep enough into gaming to know both franchises. Using it signals you’re part of the community that understands and appreciates this specific style of game design. The word’s ugliness makes it memorable and distinctive in ways that generic descriptors can’t match.
The Genre Explodes
For most of the 2000s, Metroidvania remained a niche term describing a niche genre. Nintendo kept Metroid alive with the Prime trilogy and handheld entries like Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion. Konami released excellent GBA and DS Castlevania games like Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, and Order of Ecclesia. A handful of indie developers made throwback titles for people nostalgic about exploration-based platformers. But the genre wasn’t exactly thriving.
Everything changed around 2015 when Kickstarter success stories and indie darlings proved massive demand existed for high-quality Metroidvanias. Ori and the Blind Forest wowed players with gorgeous visuals and tight gameplay. Axiom Verge captured that retro Metroid feel. Then Hollow Knight arrived in 2017 and became a phenomenon, selling millions of copies and proving that Metroidvanias could compete commercially with any other genre.
Koji Igarashi, the producer behind Symphony of the Night and many beloved Castlevania sequels, launched a Kickstarter in 2015 for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, explicitly marketed as a spiritual successor to Castlevania’s Metroidvania entries. It became the highest-funded video game on Kickstarter at the time, eventually releasing in 2019 to solid reviews. The fact that Igarashi could raise millions by promising a Metroidvania showed how far the genre had come from its near-death in the early 2000s.
By early 2025, Steam hosted over 2,200 games tagged as Metroidvanias. The genre had evolved beyond just 2D platformers to include 3D entries, roguelike hybrids, and experimental titles pushing the boundaries of what exploration-based progression could look like. Dead Cells, Ender Lilies, Blasphemous, Gato Roboto, Iconoclasts, Guacamelee – the list of excellent modern Metroidvanias is genuinely overwhelming.
The term became so ubiquitous that developers now use it in marketing materials and Steam tags without explanation. It transcended insider jargon to become standard industry vocabulary that everyone from AAA publishers to solo indie devs uses to communicate their game’s structure. What started as a forum post describing Circle of the Moon became the defining label for one of gaming’s most beloved genres.
Jeremy Parish Writes the Definitive History
Speaking of history, Jeremy Parish is finally writing the comprehensive account of how Metroidvanias evolved. Dark Horse Books will publish The History of Metroidvania: Decade One – 1980-1990 on March 3, 2026. The 232-page hardcover will retail for $55 and explores how gaming trends of the early 1980s laid the foundation for the genre.
Parish explained in a press release that this book represents the culmination of a project he began over 20 years ago when the genre had largely vanished and most people forgot these games existed. As a reviewer, he eagerly covered the handful of Metroidvania releases that trickled out, which were mostly just handheld Metroid and Castlevania sequels and remakes. Once he consumed those, he started tracing the genre’s origins and evolution through gaming history.
The book won’t just list games in the Metroid and Castlevania style. Parish broke down the themes and objectives of the Metroidvania format to explore what these titles truly are beyond surface-level comparisons. Given Parish’s reputation for exhaustively researched retrospectives through projects like NES Works and Virtual Boy Works, this book will likely become the definitive resource on the genre’s early history.
It’s somewhat poetic that Parish, the person most associated with popularizing the term Metroidvania despite not actually coining it, is now writing its official origin story. His decades of advocacy for these games and rigorous documentation of gaming history make him the perfect author to tackle this project. The fact that major publisher Dark Horse committed to a premium hardcover edition shows how seriously the industry now takes a genre that nearly died in the early 2000s.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who coined the term Metroidvania?
The exact origin is unknown, but the earliest documented use appears in a 2001 forum post discussing Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. 1UP.com writers Scott Sharkey and Jeremy Parish popularized the term in the early 2000s, with Sharkey likely using it first to describe GBA Castlevania games. Parish is most often credited but has repeatedly stated he didn’t invent it, only helped spread it through his influential writing and podcasting.
What does Metroidvania mean?
Metroidvania is a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania, describing action-adventure games focused on exploration, interconnected world design, and utility-gated progression where new abilities unlock previously inaccessible areas. The genre emphasizes backtracking, map-based exploration, and character progression through gained abilities rather than linear level-based structure.
What was the first Metroidvania game?
This depends on definition. The original Metroid (1986) established the core formula, with Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (1987) following less than a year later with similar mechanics. However, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997) is considered the template that defined the modern genre and sparked the need for a specific label to describe this style of gameplay.
Why is it called Metroidvania instead of Castleroid?
Both terms existed in early 2000s forums, but Metroidvania sounded slightly less awkward and gained traction through influential writers at 1UP.com. Castleroid appeared on GameFAQs forums but never achieved the same widespread adoption. The term Metroidvania stuck partially because Symphony of the Night’s cultural impact made the Castlevania connection valuable branding for the genre.
When did Metroidvania become popular?
The term emerged around 2001-2003 but remained niche until the mid-2010s. Indie successes like Ori and the Blind Forest (2015), Axiom Verge (2015), and especially Hollow Knight (2017) proved massive commercial demand existed. Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Kickstarter (2015) becoming the highest-funded game on the platform also signaled the genre’s mainstream resurgence. By 2025, over 2,200 games on Steam carried the Metroidvania tag.
What is Jeremy Parish’s Metroidvania book?
The History of Metroidvania: Decade One – 1980-1990 is a 232-page hardcover by Dark Horse Books releasing March 3, 2026 for $55. Written by video game historian Jeremy Parish, it explores how gaming trends of the early 1980s created the foundation for the Metroidvania genre, breaking down the themes and objectives that define these games beyond just listing titles.
What games are considered Metroidvanias?
Classic examples include Super Metroid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Metroid Fusion, and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Modern standouts include Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Ori and the Blind Forest, Axiom Verge, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Blasphemous, Guacamelee, and over 2,000 other titles spanning 2D platformers, 3D adventures, and hybrid genres combining Metroidvania structure with roguelike or action-RPG elements.
An Ugly Word for Beautiful Games
Metroidvania is a terrible word that we’re stuck with forever, and honestly, that’s fine. Yes, it’s clunky and meaningless to outsiders. Yes, better alternatives probably exist. But language isn’t logical, and the words that survive aren’t always the prettiest or most efficient. They’re the ones that emerge at the right moment, spread through the right channels, and attach themselves to something people genuinely care about.
The term Metroidvania survived because it appeared exactly when a dying genre needed rallying around. It persisted because writers like Scott Sharkey and Jeremy Parish championed these games through their influential work at 1UP and Retronauts. It thrived because indie developers in the 2010s proved that exploration-based platformers could still captivate millions of players when designed with care and creativity.
What started as an obscure forum post in 2001 describing how Circle of the Moon borrowed from Metroid became the standard label for one of gaming’s richest genres. From the original Metroid’s labyrinthine alien tunnels to Symphony of the Night’s sprawling gothic castle to Hollow Knight’s haunting insect kingdom, these games share DNA that transcends their individual franchises. They trust players to explore, to get lost, to discover secrets organically rather than following waypoints.
The word Metroidvania captures that spirit even if it sounds ridiculous. It’s a portmanteau of two made-up video game titles mashed together into something even more absurd, and yet it immediately communicates a specific style of gameplay that millions of people love. Sometimes the worst words describe the best things, and gaming is richer for having this particular ugly duckling in our vocabulary. Long live the Metroidvania, whatever the hell that actually means.